2014 – Emotional Whiplash.

2014. Wow. Woah. A hell of a lot has changed since January 2014 and yet not much has changed at all. It’s weird and confusing and between the Cosplay highs and emotional/personal Lows, I’m pretty sure that I suffered from emotional whiplash at some point. I’ll get to that in a bit.

First, a teeny tiny explanation: I don’t often talk about my personal life on my blog for a couple reasons:

It’s not something I like to share with strangers

You folks probably aren’t interested in it anyways

80% of it is ‘I LOVE MY CAT’ which I express through Twitter, and Instragram.

I *will* be mentioning some vague things here, but mostly to explain what happened in august, and why my cosplay output sharply declined.

Winter

Highs

Bought a new Serger! Antoinette (that’s her name) is lovely and sweet and works beautifully. Sergei, the old bitter man that he is, decided to stop working the week of GAnime. He lives with my mom now, and causes her grief from time to time.

Lows

Family member broke their collarbone while curling. Later required surgery. Curling is dangerous guys, don’t do it! IT’S BAD MKAY?

sub note for Non-Canadians and non-scots: Curling is a winter sport where you throw large granite rocks down a strip of ice at other large granite rocks. People sweep the ice with brooms (yes, really) on the way down to the target area. The best parts of curling are alcohol and the movie Men With Brooms.

sub-sub note: literally the day after this happened, I was asked to join the work curling club. ‘For fun’ they said.
‘Why are you hissing at me?’ they said.
‘WHY DID WE HIRE YOU? YOU ARE CLARLY INSANE’ they screamed said.

Sergei was an asshole and broke the week of GAnime. He was summarily replaced.

Lows

Found out a different member of my family has uber-rare form of cancer. Prognisos was good, but 1/1 000 000 chance sucks assbutts. Scheduled for surgery. minor ptsd flashbacks to my own health issues 10 years ago.

Found out longtime friend’s mom has cancer.

Drank lots to stave off anxiety attack. (That’s a lie. Mostly I just cuddled Cosplay cat. She didn’t mind.)

Summer!

Highs

Moved to wonderful new place, with a room just for sewing!

packing between cons sucked butt though.

Cancer situation of family member and frien’d family member resolved with surgery and no chemo required! YEAAAAAHHHHH!

Extended zodiac Group with Angelica Cosplay as an Earth Dog, and Nomadic Goldfish as a Metal Ox.

WCS Canada, and placing second! Niq Cosplay winning FIRST.

SHARKS. ALL THE SHARKS. Getting to work with JL7 Photography AROUND SHARKS.

Getting to know more awesome people.

Discovered the awesomeness of Microsoft OneNote for cosplay planning!

Lows

Finding out that oh hey I have a thing in my brain that could be bad. Luckily it’s not, it’s just kinda… there. At least now the ability to tell when weather is changing with headaches makes sense. I like to pretend I’d be brilliant if it wasn’t there. (pipe dreams, I know)

Not finishing my WCS costume and then having it break on the way to the competition & letting my partner down multiple times. Ugh. I’m cool with disappointing myself but disappointing my friends killsme.

Burnout as a result of all the health and family and cosplay issues.

Fall

Highs

NYCC: allll the fabrics, allll the good foods.

Pop Expo!

Getting to meet Junkers Cosplay. Poor thing was NOT prepared for Canada’s November weather, and had brought his Bro-cahontas to wear on the second day. Oh sweet summer child, no.

Having the chance to get to know Yaya Han who is not just a savvy business woman but also super sweet. Added bonus was being able to talk about super awful-awesome horror movies with her and Brian.

Judging a masquerade for the first time and being absolutely blown away by the guy who ended up winning best in show. Journeyman my ass, he should be in master with the quality of work he had!

Lows

Fell asleep and slept through a shoot with Eleventh Photograph by accident. WHOOPS. SORRY MIKE.

My two former career paths (journalism and game dev) exploded into a bunch of sexist bullshit that’s still ongoing. Watching it has been depressing and rewarding at the same time. Depressing in that people can be so awful, but rewarding in watching smart, determined women stand up against it.

Still burnt out, but resting and recovering bit by bit.

Winter (part Deux)

Highs

Feeling better health-wise than I have in a long time.

Did an out door shoot with Corey Graham for Red, and really looking forward to seeing the pics from that!Mahm your hems are uneven.

I got to make my niece a costume for Christmas! (this has helped get my butt motivated again by being easy and quick after the horror of WCS earlier this year)

Lows

N/A

While 2014 started off with a strong 1-2 punch of suckage, it’s wrapped up really well and I’m looking forward to a fresh start in 2015. I’m ready to let go of this year and Shake-shake-shake it off!